Absenteeism in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test in Covid-hit 2020 is double last year’s despite the exam being held a second time this year for the benefit of those who had skipped the first edition.

Of the 15.97 lakh registered candidates, 2.3 lakh or 14.4 per cent failed to appear in the test, held on September 13 and October 14.

Last year, about 1.08 lakh among the 15.19 lakh registered candidates had stayed away, clocking an absenteeism figure of 7.1 per cent. Last year, the test was held just once.

The Supreme Court had on Monday allowed the exam to be conducted a second time on Wednesday to help the students who could not take the test on September 13.

Nearly 7.71 lakh candidates including a transgender student have cleared this year’s exam, scripting a success rate of 56.44 per cent among those who appeared in it. Last year’s success rate was 56.5 per cent.

The NEET is the national entrance exam for admission to undergraduate medical and dental courses, of which there are nearly 80,000 and 27,000 seats, respectively.

Soyeb Aftab from Odisha scored 720 out of 720 to top the merit list. Akanksha Singh from Delhi too scored 720 but was placed second because she was older. A tie in aggregate score, individual subject scores and percentile score can be broken by considering the age of the candidates, the rules say.

At 66.95 per cent, the success rate is highest among the Economically Weaker Sections candidates. The success rate among general-category students is 55.09 per cent and that among the OBCs, 59.19 per cent.

The qualification cut-off for the general merit list was a percentile score of 50, compared with 45 for economically weaker candidates and 40 for the OBC, Dalit and tribal candidates.